![]() The De usu astrolabii of Abu’l-Qāsim Maslama (Ibn al-Sạffār), in three manuscripts-quite convincing linguistic reasons have been given by M. Al-Battāni’s al-Zij (“Astronomical Treatise”), or De motu stellarum, in ten manuscripts and two editions.Ĥ. The Sphericaby Theodosius of Bithynia, translated from the Greco-Arabic version of Ḥunayn ibn Ishäāq or of Qusṭā ibn Lūqā and extant in eleven manuscripts and four early editions.ģ. The Liber Embadorum (“Book of Areas,” or “Practical Geometry”) of Savasorda, identified by Steinschneider as the Ḥibbur ha-meshiḥah we-ha-tish-boretof Abraham bar Ḥiyya, translated from the Hebrew in 1145 and preserved in at least five manuscripts.Ģ. The four truly scientific works-two mathematical and two astronomical-that in manuscripts or printed editions carry the name of Plato of Tivoli, with of without the name of Abraham bar Ḥiyya, as a translator are the following:ġ. His influence as a translator and editor is shown by the use of his versions by Leonardo Fibonacci and Albertus Magnus, by the relatively large number of manuscripts of his texts still surviving, and by the number of printed editions of some of them produced in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the middle of the thirteenth century Plato was mentioned as an eminent Christian mathematician by the author of the Summa Philosophie wrongly ascribed to Robert Grosseteste. In the introductions to two translations Plato says that he was prompted by selective interests: he preferred al-Battānī to Ptolemy because al-Battānī was less verbose, and Ibn al-Ṣaffär to many other authors on the astrolabe because he was more reliable and scientific He was a friend of at least one other translator of Arabic scientific literature, John, son of David, to whom he dedicated his translation of the work on the astrolabe. It is impossible to determine to what extent the translations ascribed to Plato alone or to both men reflect Plato’s linguistic and scientific knowledge finds the Latin rendering exact and clear. His name appears only as a translator from the Arabic and Hebrew-or, better, as an editor of translations made in collaboration with the Jewish mathematician and polymath Abraham bar Ḥiyya ha-Nasi (Savasorda). He was one of the first scientist-scholars active in the Iberian Peninsula to provide the Latin West with some of the works of Greek authors as transmitted of elaborated in Arabic and Hebrew and with works originally written in those languages he was the first to edit Ptolemy in Latin and to help in the translation of the most important Hebrew treatise on geometry. Presumably an Italian, Plato is known only through his work, at least part of which was produced at Barcelona between 11. Mathematics, astronomy, astrology, medicine. Barcelona, first half of twelfth century)
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